French Team Goes Down in Flames at World Cup

With a 2-1 defeat to host team South Africa,
the French national squad has lost their final game in the 2010
World Cup. Astoundingly, given their second-place overall finish in 2006, they finished last in their group and will not even advance to the
knockout rounds. In fact, it's been a rough ride the whole time--from the handball securing their
qualification, to the insurrection following coach Raymond Domenech's decision to send home a troublesome player, to this disappointing exit. Here's a
roundup of the head-shaking in the international press, as commentators ponder
the incomparably dreadful 2010 performance of "Les Bleus."

Disgraceful "After having arrived with the status of world vice-champions," writes Erwan Le Duc
in Le Monde, "the French are leaving crowned with a well-deserved dunce
cap at the end of a competition which they enlivened more from the
sidelines than on the field. After the
tragi-comic events which transformed the basecamp of the Blues into
(bad) boulevard theatre, this last match came at the worst possible
time for a 'group' that no longer had anything big to win, but visibly
had a little bit more to lose." He clearly means their dignity, noting
that the "victory for honor didn't come."

Impossible to Beat Guardian liveblogger Paul Doyle
decides France "could not have found a more ignominious way to exit.
They finished bottom of Group A in a manner that makes them the
laughing stock of the footballing world." He also notices that the
French coach declined to shake hands with the South African coach at
the end of the game. "He really is a petty, silly man."

'La Fin. Let the Discredits Roll.'Amy Lawrence goes even further with her Guardian writeup.

Let Les Bleus
depart the total shambles that they are. Their World Cup 2010
experience has been so unfathomably awful, it is hard to know where to
begin with the inquest ... Mutiny, treachery, bitchiness, on top of
abject performances on the pitch. This fiasco is everything that their
triumphant team of old was not ... Honestly, what a surreal story. Even
Jean Cocteau wouldn't have dreamed this one up.

'Karma' That's one possible explanation, notes The New York Times' Andrew Das. "The French only reached the World Cup when an uncalled handball by
Thierry Henry set up the winning goal in their playoff with Ireland
last year, and their detractors howled even more when they were placed
in what appeared to be a soft group for the first round."